402 PALEONTOLOGY 



age ; and to a period " anterior to the surface assuming its 

 present outline, so far as some of its minor features are con- 

 cerned." 



Similar Hint weapons had been discovered by Mr. John 

 Frere, F.K.S. (" Archeologia," vol. xiii., " An account of flint 

 weapons discovered at Hoxne in Suffolk," 1800) in a bed of 

 flint gravel, 16 feet below the surface, of the same geological 

 age as that in the valley of the Sonmie. 



Flint weapons have been discovered mixed indiscrimi- 

 nately with the bones of the extinct cave-bear and rhino- 

 ceros. One in particular was met with beneath a fine antler of 

 a rein-deer, and a bone of the cave-bear, imbedded in the 

 superficial stalagmite in the bone-cave at Brixham, Devon- 

 shire, during the careful exploration of that cave conducted 

 by a committee of the Geological Society of London in 1858 

 and 1859. 



Dr. Falconer, F.G.S., has communicated (" Proceedings of 

 the Geological Society," June 22, 1859) the results of his 

 examination of ossiferous caves in Palermo; and in respect 

 to the " Maccagnone cave," he draws the following infer- 

 ences : — That, " it was filled up to the roof within the human 

 period, so that a thick layer of bone splinters, teeth, land- 

 shells, coprolites of hyaena, and human objects, was aggluti- 

 nated to the roof by the infiltration of water holding lime in 

 solution ; that subsequently and within the human period, 

 such a great amount of change took place in the physical 

 configuration of the district as to have caused the cave to be 

 washed out, and emptied of its contents, excepting the floor- 

 breccia and the patches of material cemented to the roof, and 

 since coated with additional stalagmite." (P. 130.) 



Sir Charles Lyell believes " the antiquity of the Abbeville 

 and Amiens flint instruments to be great indeed, if compared 

 to the times of history or tradition. . . ." " It must have re- 

 quired a long period for the wearing down of the chalk which 



